Francie's Got a Gun, page 8
A dog began to bark, somewhere behind her.
“We have to cross the stream,” Francie said, but saying it made her feel even more alone. It was just Francie, pushing the sneakers off without untying the laces. Grandma Irene would shake her head—You’re wrecking those shoes, Francie, just look at them. Francie crouched and peeled off her socks, shoved the bottoms of her jeans up above her knees, very hard to do with just one hand.
A dog, barking.
“Hurry, come on!” she whispered, as if Alice were here too.
Alice wouldn’t want to cross the stream. Alice would be scared. Francie would have to grab Alice by the arm and drag her in: “We don’t have time! We have to get there before nightfall!”
Wait, where? Where are we going?
The bank was slicker than Francie had guessed. She slid into the stream, quick, a shock, arms stuck out, trying to hold on to socks, shoes, gun. Water washed above her ankles. Clean. Cold. Not so deep after all, see, Alice? We’re fine!
But the dog was barking, louder and louder, and Francie turned—don’t turn, don’t look!—she wobbled on a loose stone, she slipped off balance, she fell. Gasping, splashing. The arm with the gun above her head, protecting it. Why? The other arm underwater, hand holding shoes and socks pushing off the bottom. Up, thrashing to the other side, crawling up the muddy bank, hot and stinky in the sun.
“Okay,” Francie said. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
The gun was dry. But her shoes and socks were soaked, jeans too. Francie sat and tried to stuff her bare feet into the sneakers, but they didn’t fit anymore. The laces were fat and waterlogged, fixed into place, knotted and sopping. Just like I told you, said Grandma Irene.
Not you! I want Alice!
The stream and its banks and the sky were too open. The dog was still barking. Francie jammed her feet partway into the sneakers.
“It’s really happening,” she said to Alice. “They’re really after us.”
She stood up, sneakers sloshing, squashed down at the back with her heels hanging out.
The other side was flatter, wetter, swampy in parts. It was hard to run with sneakers half-on, half-falling-off. It was such a stupid thing to get stuck on, such a small and stupid thing, but Francie was almost crying as she stopped, kicked off one sneaker, and tried yanking at the knotted laces with her teeth.
She was crying, almost.
Leave the shoes, there isn’t time to worry about them, Alice said.
“Alice! Is that you?” But Alice didn’t answer.
Francie was on the other side. She’d made it—exactly this far. Exactly this far.
SIX
Jewels
“My dad has a new job,” Francie told Alice.
Alice said, “I thought your dad was sick, maybe?”
Francie frowned, she ignored Alice. “He has a new job,” Francie said. “He gets jewels.”
Oh!
Alice said, “What does he do with them?”
Alice knew that Francie’s dad was not like her own dad—not much like a dad at all, in most ways, more like someone from one of their make-believe stories. What Alice couldn’t figure out was what kind of a person he was—good or bad? Francie and Alice were always good, but everyone else was trickier to measure. A good person could be disguised as a bad person, or a bad person could be disguised as a good person. Francie’s dad seemed, maybe, to be bad, but Alice knew that could mean anything.
They were walking in the park past the baseball diamonds. Men and women in red and white t-shirts threw balls at each other, shouting in a friendly way over music that pumped from a car’s radio, pulled up behind the fence at home plate. Pop music. Alice didn’t recognize the song.
Francie was humming, maybe she knew the song.
“What does your dad do with the jewels?” Alice persisted. In fact, she was pretty sure, almost certain, Francie’s dad was bad. He scared her. Francie knew everything about Alice, but not this. Alice’s fear of Francie’s dad was too deep, too real to speak of. She didn’t want Francie to know.
“He picks them up and drops them off,” said Francie. As far as Alice could tell, Francie was not afraid of her dad.
“Does he get to keep the jewels?” Alice asked.
Francie didn’t answer right away. They were walking on the paved path to get to the woods in the middle of the park. “Sometimes,” she said at last, but Alice wasn’t sure she believed her. Francie did not always tell the truth, according to Alice’s mom. Sally wouldn’t let Alice argue on Francie’s behalf. “Are you saying your friend never makes things up?” But— “Are you saying she’s always perfectly honest, and you believe everything she says?”
No, but—
no.
Are the jewels stolen? Alice wanted to know, but couldn’t ask. She sensed that this story meant something different to Francie than the usual stories they played together. Were the jewels real? Was Francie talking about something real?
“Let’s pretend we’re refugees,” said Francie. “A bomb fell on our town and we had to escape. My name is Arabella. What’s your name?”
“Alice?”
“You can’t say your own name.”
“Alecka?” said Alice, hoping it would satisfy Francie.
“You always use Alecka. It’s not even a real name.”
“You always use Arabella,” said Alice, risking an argument.
“Okay,” said Francie. “Alecka. We’re riding horses, because when we escaped from the bomb, that’s all we had—two horses. You have to decide your horse’s name and what it looks like. You can’t say pink just because you’re wearing pink.”
Alice frowned. She looked down at her shirt. She thought it looked like cotton candy. “Cotton candy,” she said.
“Cotton candy is not a colour,” said Francie.
There were parts of the games they played that Alice could never manage to Francie’s satisfaction. This was not Alice’s problem to solve, as Alice saw it. Besides, Francie loved these parts—deciding who they were and where they were going and what they looked like, details that would hold firm or shift as necessary, while the game lasted, according to Francie’s whim. “You do it for me,” said Alice.
“Okay, you’re riding a chestnut mare with a reddish mane and tail. She is just above 14.2 hands, which means she’s a horse, not a pony, but she’s small for a horse. Her name is Estellina.”
“Estellina.” Alice sighed happily.
They stopped for a moment beside the playground to look at a big kid on one of the baby swings, a teenager, his bike tipped into the sand. He wasn’t sitting idly atop the swing, he was pumping his legs to go higher and higher. He seemed lost in his own world, he didn’t seem to notice them.
“We’ll be safe in the woods, Alecka,” Francie said softly, and Alice knew the big kid must be a bad person.
“Where does your dad keep the jewels?” Alice whispered back. “Are the jewels somewhere safe?” The jewels seemed to be part of this game, she couldn’t separate them out.
Francie said, “I can’t tell you, it’s a secret, I’m not even supposed to know.”
Game, then.
“What kind of jewels?” Alice pushed. Maybe the big kid was going to steal the jewels. Maybe, when the bomb fell on their house, Francie had secretly taken the jewels along with her horse.
“Diamonds,” Francie whispered. “Emeralds, rubies, also sapphires and topazes. Fool’s gold, too.”
“What’s fool’s gold?”
“It looks like real gold, except it’s not.”
Did that make it better than real gold? Alice wasn’t sure but decided not to ask. They were in the woods now, and the paved path changed to dirt sprinkled with wood chips. They were walking downhill. Francie was thinking, her head down. “I can show you some jewels. Maybe the fool’s gold,” she said at last.
Better than real gold!
Was this part of the game? Alice couldn’t be sure. Excitement bubbled into her throat, the excitement that came from being with Francie, who was different from anyone else Alice knew. What they shared couldn’t be spoiled, not by anyone. Overhead, the leaves were thick, the late morning sun moved in thin, bright strands through the canopy, shadows and light splashing their faces.
Alice returned to the game. “What’s your horse like?”
“He’s golden with a jet-black mane and tail. He is a few hands taller than your horse, with a black fringe around his hooves.” Francie paused. “Estellina is adorable,” she said, and Alice knew Francie wanted to reassure Alice, wanted to avoid an argument about something Alice didn’t really care about, one way or the other. “Estellina is also very spunky,” Francie insisted, “even though she’s small.”
“Okay. What’s your horse called?”
“Champ,” said Francie. A new name in the game. “Champ is a little bit mean. He bites, but he can jump fences. He can even jump across the stream at the bottom of the hill.”
They had never crossed the stream. Francie was afraid of the other side (or was that Arabella?). Either way, neither Alecka nor Alice wanted to get wet.
“Let’s gallop,” said Francie, and they turned their horses up a different path, away from a couple they could see walking ahead carrying a baby in a backpack, with a small spotted dog on a leash.
Alice had to gallop hard to keep up—because Francie’s horse was taller, she thought, a thought interrupted by a dog barking behind them. Had the little spotted dog gotten loose from its leash? Alice wasn’t scared of dogs, not like Francie, who shouted, “Faster!”
Estellina picked up her hooves.
Francie, galloping ahead, turned around, and screamed—a real scream. They were being chased, and not by the little spotted dog. Alice screamed too. She was not afraid of dogs, but this was not a dog. It was a wolf, enormous and shaggy, with giant paws and fur like a mane around its neck, its big red mouth rimmed with black lips and yellow teeth—the last thing Alice saw as she followed Francie off the path, into the brush.
“Stop! Stop!” a woman was hollering. “He’s very gentle! He loves kids! Don’t run!”
Alice and Francie galloped through slapping branches and old leaves and green forest ferns. What happened when a story came to life? Francie’s horse was veering wildly, Alice had to save her! She ran toward a large fallen tree trunk and threw herself off Estellina. “Hurry, Arabella, hurry!” She grabbed Francie’s hand, and they scooched up the trunk, safe from the wolf, which had found them.
Oh no, the horses!
“Will the horses be okay?” Alice cried. Francie looked stricken. “They’ll be okay, right?” Alice begged, but Francie didn’t reply.
The wolf circled and growled. It thought it had them cornered, trapped. It could hardly have been more proud to show off its catch to its owner when she caught up, purse bouncing off her thigh, breathless and homely with fright and rage. The woman’s hair was grey, chopped to her shoulders.
“You shouldn’t have run! He’s friendly, can’t you see?” The woman folded over to catch her breath. The wolf did not fool Alice, even though it wagged its tail like a dog, an enormous fringe arching over an enormous hairy back.
All teeth.
The woman righted herself, red in the face. Maybe she was Little Red Riding Hood, all grown up and turned mean because she’d married the wolf at the end of the story—Alice wanted to tell Francie.
“Why were you running? What are you doing here all by yourselves?” The woman held the wolf’s collar, eyelids narrowing. “Where’s your mom? Or your dad?” she added as an afterthought.
“They’re playing baseball,” Alice heard Francie say, as easily as if it were true.
“Let me walk you there,” said the woman. Anyone could see she was only pretending to be nice—she wasn’t very good at it.
Alice and Francie locked eyes. They shook their heads no.
“Well!”
“We don’t talk to strangers,” said Francie loudly.
“What are your names? Where do you live?” But they didn’t answer. The wolf was growling again, its fur standing up around its collar, and the woman couldn’t control any of them, wolves or children, she couldn’t make them do as she pleased, and she was angry—she thought she’d disguised herself, but she couldn’t fool them!
“She’s a witch!” Alice said to Francie as soon as the woman had gone, fighting every step to drag the wolf away.
Alice waited for Francie to agree, but Francie had gone very quiet. Her eyes weren’t focused on anything in particular.
Alice inched up the fallen tree till she was at the end where the trunk rested on the stump that had once held it up, she leaned down to touch the splinters, soft, rotten, crumbling under her pinch. She wasn’t hurting the tree; it was already dead. She was feeling a familiar disappointment that she didn’t like to think about too much—she’d been so proud to recognize the witch in disguise, but Francie seemed to be somewhere else, her thoughts scattering out beyond where Alice’s were able to travel. Francie sat as still as a statue, or as still as a sleeping body whose mind is dreaming of leaving her body behind.
“Where are our horses?” Alice said at last.
Francie stirred and looked around. “We can ride them home now,” she said, which meant the horses must have survived the wolf attack. Alice felt relieved. It had been in Francie’s power to decide otherwise, of course.
“Where is home?” said Alice, and she felt between them a shiver of delight that might also have been fear. It seemed possible that they might someday find themselves so deep inside their make-believe world they’d never escape.
* * *
—
“Let’s go to your house,” Alice said, even though she knew Francie wanted to go to Alice’s house; they both liked what the other had, and didn’t have. “If we go to your house,” Alice said, “we can look for the jewels.” An argument worth having.
“What jewels?” Francie said, and Alice felt duped, as angry as the witch had been, uncertain, now, whether she was Alecka or Alice.
“Fool’s gold!” said Alice. The words were dangerous, sparkling in her mouth, hard on her tongue. Francie didn’t reply. They were galloping across the field beside the baseball diamonds, where soccer nets had been erected, white chalk marking lines on the grass.
“We can go to your house first,” Francie said when they’d reached the main path that took them to the crosswalk. “Your house is closest.”
“After that we’ll look for the jewels!” Alice squeaked.
And Francie didn’t say no.
* * *
—
Alice and Francie sat cross-legged on Francie’s front stoop in the full sun. Francie’s mom and baby brother were napping, so Francie had made them lunch, Alice’s favourite: peanut butter on soft white bread, the good kind of peanut butter, the kind that Alice’s mom said was full of icing sugar. The stoop was made of concrete slabs and did not attach perfectly to the house—Francie peeled off her sandwich crusts and dropped them down the gap, but Alice ate the whole sandwich, crusts and all.
Just then, Francie’s mom came around the side of the house carrying Francie’s little brother Sam. “I thought I heard voices,” she said. She set Sam down into the grass and picked up their empty plates. Her voice was sharp, her movements quick. She frowned at Francie. “What are you wearing? Is that a wedding dress? Where on earth did you get it?”
“It’s my mom’s, she said it was okay, we’re playing dress-up,” said Alice. Francie’s mom did not like this at all, Alice saw, so she quickly added, “My mom doesn’t care.”
“Well, I care on her behalf, or on behalf of that beautiful dress. It looks like raw silk. Don’t you dare go dragging it through the dirt, Francie.”
“We can babysit Sam, Mrs. Fultz,” Alice offered.
“Don’t call me that, Alice, you know my name.”
Alice nodded, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. Marietta was a straight-spined woman who seemed to hum and crackle with energy. She was much thinner than Alice’s mom, her hair cropped into an angular frame along her jaw on one side and shorn up over her ear on the other. She had a piercing in her nose that caught the light, very tiny, like the head of a silver pin. Not gold.
Carefully, Alice negotiated the concrete steps, trying not to trip on the hem of her sister Kate’s grade eight graduation gown. While it was true that Sally had given Francie permission to wear the wedding dress, Kate didn’t know Alice was borrowing her gown. Kate never would have said yes.
The gown was made of slippery silver material and had spaghetti straps and a very long skirt. Alice was swimming in it.
She lifted Sam out of the grass and took a good sniff of his head as she pulled him close. He smelled like baby fluff, wet popcorn, maybe a little bit like pee, if pee smelled good. Sam grabbed Alice’s cheeks in both hands and squeezed.
“No pinching!” Marietta scolded him.
“He’s not pinching,” Alice said, wriggling as one of the shoulder straps slipped down. She stared into Sam’s black eyes, willing him not to pinch. Her own eyes began to water. “Peekaboo!” she said, and Sam giggled, the sound rumbling up from his belly.
“If you want to watch him…” Marietta drifted up the driveway, holding the plates. She was gone before Sam even noticed.
As soon as her mother was out of sight, Francie said, “You don’t have to hold him.”
“You’re so lucky,” Alice couldn’t help saying. “I want a baby brother.”
“You can have him.” Francie grabbed the black metal railing that was sunk into the concrete stoop and swung through its wide bars down to the grass, the dress swishing as she landed. She dusted rust off her hands. “Let’s do something.”
